Дэвид Балдаччи - The Collectors

Annabelle said, “We need the passports to get out of the country for a while until things cool down.”

“Out of the country?” Tony exclaimed, half rising out of his chair.

“Jerry’s not infallible, but there’s no sense in being stupid. You can see the world, Tony. Learn Italian,” she advised.

“What about my parents?” Tony said.

“Send ’em postcards,” Leo growled over his shoulder as he struggled to fit a toupee to his head. “Talk about your freaking amateur hour.”

“U.S. passports are difficult to make, Annabelle,” Freddy said. “They go for ten grand each on the street.”

Annabelle gave him a hard stare. “Well, you’re being paid six point five million to do these, Freddy.”

The man swallowed nervously. “I see your point. You’ll have them.” Freddy went off with the list.

“I’ve never even been out of the country,” Tony said.

“Best time to go is when you’re young,” Annabelle said, sitting down across from him at the table.

“Have you ever been out of the country?” he asked her.

Leo piped in. “Are you kidding? You think the States are the only place to run a con? Ha!”

“I’ve been around,” Annabelle admitted.

Tony looked at her nervously. “Well, maybe we could travel together. You could show me around. You and Leo,” he added quickly. “And I bet Freddy would want to come too.”

Annabelle was already shaking her head. “We split up. Four apart is much harder to catch than four together.”

“Right, okay, sure,” Tony said.

“You’ll have plenty of money to live on,” she added.

Tony brightened. “A villa somewhere in Europe, with my own staff.”

“ Don’t start throwing the cash around. That’s a red flag. Start small and keep your head down. I’ll get you out of the country, and then you take it from there.” She sat forward. “And now here’s exactly what I need from you.” Annabelle explained Tony’s task in great detail. “Can you do it?”

“No problem,” he said immediately. She eyed him questioningly. “Look, I dropped out of MIT after two years because I was bored!”

“I know. That was the other reason I picked you.”

Tony looked down at his laptop and started typing. “I’ve actually done it before and fooled the place with the best security in the world.”

“Who’s that, the Pentagon?” Leo asked.

“No. Wal-Mart.”

Leo shot him a glance. “You’re kidding me? Wal-Mart?”

“Hey, Wal-Mart doesn’t mess around.”

“How quickly can you do it?” Annabelle asked.

“Give me a couple days.”

“No more than two. I want to test it.”

“I’ve got no problem with that,” he said confidently.

Leo rolled his eyes, said a silent prayer, made the sign of the cross and went back to his toupee.

While Freddy and Tony were working on their assignments, Leo and Annabelle donned disguises and headed to the Pompeii Casino. The largest casino on the Boardwalk and one of the newest, having risen from the ruins of an older gambling den, the Pompeii, true to its name, also sported a working volcano that “erupted” twice a day, at noon and six in the evening. What came out of the volcano wasn’t lava, but certificates that one could use to get drinks and food. Since casinos practically gave food and alcohol away to keep people gambling, it was not much of a sacrifice on Bagger’s part. However, people loved thinking they were getting something for nothing. Thus, the twice-daily eruptions were a surefire draw, the crowds lining up early and then proceeding to dump far more money in the casino than they would ever get back in food and liquor from the belches of the fake volcano.

“Leave it to Bagger to get morons to line up for that crap and then drop their paychecks in his casinos while they’re getting fat and drunk,” Leo snarled.

“Jerry collects chumps; that’s the lifeblood of the casino business.”

“I remember when the first casino opened here in ’78,” Leo said.

Annabelle nodded. “Resorts International, bigger than any Vegas casino at the time except the MGM. Paddy ran some crews here for a while at the beginning.”

“Well, your old man never should have come back with you and me!” Leo lit a cigarette and pointed down the line of casinos. “I started out here. The casino crews back then were mostly locals. You had nurses, garbage truck drivers and gas jockeys all of a sudden dealing cards and running craps and roulette tables. They were so bad you could run any scam you wanted. Hell, you didn’t even have to cheat. You could make money just off their mistakes. That lasted about four years. I sent both my kids through college on the money I made back then.”

She looked at him. “You never talked to me about your family before.”

“Yeah, like you’re a real blabbermouth when it comes to that stuff.”

“You knew my parents. What could I add to that?”

“I had kids early. They’re grown and gone and so’s my old lady.”

“Did she know what you did for a living?”

“Hard to hide it after a while. She liked the money, just not the way I earned it. We never told the kids. I wasn’t going to let them get near the business.”

“Smart man.”

“Yeah, they still ditched me.”

“Don’t look back, Leo, too many regrets start popping out.”

He shrugged and then grinned. “We had a helluva roulette thing going here, didn’t we? Any con can past-post craps and blackjack, but only real pros can do it long-term at roulette. It’s as close as you can get to a long con at a casino table.” He looked at her admiringly. “You were the best claimer I’d ever seen, Annabelle. You could bring the heat or the cool. The pit bosses melted every damn time. And you saw the steam coming before any of us,” he added, referring to suspicious casino employees.

“And you were the best mechanic I ever worked with, Leo. Even when some rook cut into your move, you still nailed it before the dealer turned back around.”

“Yeah, I was good, but the fact is you were just as good a mechanic as me. I think sometimes your old man kept me on because you said to.”

“You give me way too much credit. Paddy Conroy only did what Paddy Conroy wanted to do. And what he ultimately did was screw us both.”

“Yeah, and leave us for Bagger to feed on. And if you hadn’t been cat-quick about it and made him miss by a couple inches?” He looked out toward the ocean. “Maybe we’d be out there somewhere.”

She plucked the cigarette out of his mouth. “And now that we’re done patting each other on the back down memory lane, let’s get to work.”

They started toward the casino entrance and then abruptly stopped. “Let the cattle drive get by,” Leo warned.

Each casino had a bus drive where the charters would start lining up at eleven o’clock in the morning. They’d disgorge their usually elderly passengers who’d spend all day in the casino running through their Social Security money and eating junk food. Then they’d hop back on the bus and head home with little to live on for the rest of the month, but certain that they would be back when their next government check rolled in.

Leo and Annabelle watched the senior citizen brigades charge into the Pompeii in time for the first eruption of the day and then wandered in after them. They spent several hours walking the place and even played a few games of chance along the way. Leo had a nice ride at craps, while Annabelle stuck to blackjack, winning more than she lost.

They hooked up a little later and had a drink at one of the bars. As Leo watched a curvy thong-wearing waitress carry a load of drinks to a hot craps table three deep with bettors looking to ride some action to riches, Annabelle said in a low voice, “Well?”